'Unplanned' is based on the true story of a former pro-abortionist who became a pro-life activist
A scene from the 2019 American drama film 'Unplanned'. (Photo: pluggedin.com)
Macau Diocese has encouraged Catholics and people of other faiths in the former Portuguese colony to watch the premier show of 2019 pro-life American drama film Unplanned.
Cineteatro de Macau, a single-screen theater helmed by Macau Diocesan Social Communication Center, will feature the film on May 19, reported Jornal O’Clarim, the Catholic weekly of Macau Diocese.
Father Daniel Ribeiro, parish priest of the Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lady, said the entire diocese is promoting the film with an aim to spread the pro-life message to Macanese citizens.
“All families are invited to watch the film,” Father Ribeiro said.
The promotion of the film is part of Macau Diocese’s activities based on the Catholic Church’s pro-life and anti-abortion stance stemming from Catholic social teaching on the sacredness of human life.
Last year Macau Diocese offered a special Mass and inaugurated a monument for “a celebration of aborted fetuses” at the diocesan funeral home.
Local media reports suggest that the city is a prime destination of sex trafficking where many local and foreign women and girls end up becoming sex workers in the city’s brothels, businesses, and homes
Unplanned is a powerful film based on the 2011 memoir of Abby Johnson, a former clinic director of Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organization that provides reproductive and abortion-related health services globally. Johnson became a leading anti-abortion activist after quitting the agency.
The film was theatrically released in the US by evangelical Christian Pure Flix studio on March 29, 2019, amid protests from pro-choice abortion rights activists. Its directors are Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman with main actors Ashley Bratcher, Brooks Ryan and Robia Scott.
Macau, often dubbed the Las Vegas of the East for its glittering gaming and gambling industry, is a special administrative region of China. It was under Portuguese rule from 1557 to 1999. Macau Diocese has 30,000 Catholics in nine parishes out of an estimated population of 700,000 in the island city.
Local media reports suggest that the city is a prime destination of sex trafficking where many local and foreign women and girls end up becoming sex workers in the city’s brothels, businesses, and homes.
As a result, Macau has high levels of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, though no official data is available. Analysts believe the scourge of abortion in Macau is as high as in mainland China, where abortion is legal.
China legalized abortion in the 1950s with the government providing contraception and abortion services including induced abortion (carried out in the first trimester of pregnancy) and sex-selective abortion. The Chinese government’s much-criticized one-child policy, which existed until 2015, had been blamed for millions of sex-selective abortions of female fetuses.
The flawed population policy created an appalling gender imbalance. There were 120 men for every 100 women in China, state-run Global Times reported in November 2020.
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